The Dr. Walter B. James Memorial Laboratory for BiophysicsSource: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Mar., 1930), pp. 287-288Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/14763 .

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THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 287

tions bringing together in daily contact men who are working in almost every field of medicine.

The center will provide facilities for the treatment of 1,000 bed patients and approximately the same number of out- patients daily. The teaching, research and hospital staff, undergraduate and graduate students, and nurses and em-

ployees, will number from 1,500 to 2,000 persons.

Between Seventieth and Seventy-first Streets, the Association is building a nurses' home to house 500 student and graduate nurses, an employees' dormi- tory, and a service building garage and power plant designed to serve the entire center.

THE lR. WALTER BR TAMES MEMORIAL LABORATORY FOR BIOPHYSICS

A NEW laboratory is being completed for research in biophysics at the Biolog- ical Laboratory of the Long Island Bio- logical Association at Cold Spring Har- bor. The completion of this building marks not only a step forward by that laboratory, but gives indication of the strength of a new viewpoint which will doubtless find expression in an increas- ing number of institutions.

At Cold Spring Harbor the laboratory has been established from the point of view that it shall be a real physical lab- oratory, equipped with all the facilities of a modern physical institute, for work with problems in biology. The primary aim of the laboratory is therefore to de- velop physical apparatus and methods of value to biology and to carry on research in those fields in physics in which work is required for the purposes of biology.

As a secondary aim, the laboratory will place at the disposal of visiting biologists various physical apparatus developed at the laboratory or such standard physical apparatus as is available. It is consid- ered that Cold Spring Harbor provides an ideal place for such a laboratory by giving an opportunity for first-hand acquaintance with such apparatus to the large number of investigators from uni- versities and medical schools throughout the country who are in residence at the Biological Laboratory during the sum- mer. It is expected, in this way, that the equipment and findings of the lab- oratory will be of immediate and unusual value to biologists at large.

The laboratory itself, of which a pho- tograph is reproduced herewith, has been planned and constructed with special at- tention to safety, and to the control of temperature, vibration and noise. It is one story in height and of simple utili- tarian architecture. It includes an X-ray laboratory equipped with a 10 K.W. 140 K.V., kenotron-rectified X-ray generating unit, installation for pump- ing X-ray tubes and other kinds of vacuum tubes, apparatus for measurinig X-rays in the new international r-unit; a laboratory equipped for work with high frequency electric currents; a chem- ical laboratory equipped with a number of special apparatus especially designed for a study of the chemical action of X-rays, an apparatus for electrometric titration, apparatus for analysis of gases, a spectrophotometer; a. mechanics shop with shop equipment and tools for precision work, a carpenter shop and a glass-blowers' shop. There are also a cold room, a photographic room, a filing room and a small library. Provision has been made for the addition of a second story when needed.

The laboratory has been named the Dr. Walter B. James Memorial Labora- tory in honor of Dr. James who was for many years an officer of the laboratory and who was president of the Long Island Biological Association at the time of his death. The building was given by Mrs. James in recognition of Dr. James's sustained and reasoned ilnterest in the work of the Biological Laboratory.

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288 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

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THE DR:. WA lTER -i B. JAE MEMRIA LBRATR

The laboratory for biophysics is under the immediate charge of Dr. Hugo Fricke, who was appointed to the staff of the Biological Laboratory one year ago. Previously he had been director of the department of biophysics of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. The tech- nical staff ineludes an instrument-maker,

a radio engineer and a glass-blower. Dr. E. Saxl, of Vienna, is collaborating in researeh on the electrical capacity and conductivity of biological cells and sys- tems, and Mlessrs. R. W. Asmussen and A. Hempel-Hansen, of the University of Copenhagen, are cooperating in studies of the chemical action of X-rays.

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